The 1870 constitution of
The House of Life comprised two parts, the first
Sonnets section, the
second this section of eleven Songs. DGR did not
arrive at this structure for the 1870 House of Life until quite late in the
prepublication process—in fact, in the proofs
for the first edition,
which were pulled around 1 March 1870. The distinct section
of Songs thus evolved during the three months between the
Second Trial book, printed at
the end of November 1869, and the proofs for the first edition. To that point
the eleven songs that came to make up this section were mixed together under
the general heading Sonnets and Songs Towards a Work to be called The House of Life.
Baum is the only critic to comment on the poems as a group
(see
Poems, Ballads, and Sonnets
152n
): “They were composed at different times and
seem to have little unity as a group. The kinship of some of them with
the early poems of Morris and Swinburne, both in tone and in technique,
is easily recognizable, but it would be difficult to say in any one
instance which poet taught the other. Each poem is at least as much a metrical study as a thematic exercise or personal expression.”
Printing History
First printed as eleven Songs
in the 1870 Poems, and as an integral part of The House of Life
sequence, in the revised 1881 edition the sequence was separated from
The House of
Life and became thirteen poems. In 1881 the sequence follows
the same order, except
A New-Year's Burden and
Even So follow
Penumbra.
This collection contains 58 texts and images, including:
1870 Poems First Edition text
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
The 1870 constitution of The House of Life comprised two parts, the first Sonnets section, the second this section of eleven Songs. DGR did not arrive at this structure for the 1870 House of Life until quite late in the prepublication process—in fact, in the proofs for the first edition, which were pulled around 1 March 1870. The distinct section of Songs thus evolved during the three months between the Second Trial book, printed at the end of November 1869, and the proofs for the first edition. To that point the eleven songs that came to make up this section were mixed together under the general heading Sonnets and Songs Towards a Work to be called The House of Life.
Baum is the only critic to comment on the poems as a group (see Poems, Ballads, and Sonnets 152n ): “They were composed at different times and seem to have little unity as a group. The kinship of some of them with the early poems of Morris and Swinburne, both in tone and in technique, is easily recognizable, but it would be difficult to say in any one instance which poet taught the other. Each poem is at least as much a metrical study as a thematic exercise or personal expression.”
Printing History
First printed as eleven Songs in the 1870 Poems, and as an integral part of The House of Life sequence, in the revised 1881 edition the sequence was separated from The House of Life and became thirteen poems. In 1881 the sequence follows the same order, except A New-Year's Burden and Even So follow Penumbra.